​A meet­ing de­signed to bring clar­i­ty to the process by which Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NG­Bs) re­ceive fund­ing through the Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) will pro­ceed with­out two key de­ci­sion-mak­ers - Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary (PS) Nar­ine Char­ran.

​The meet­ing was called by SporTT fol­low­ing the in­abil­i­ty of a ju­nior cy­cling team to re­ceive fund­ing for the Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Cy­cling Cham­pi­onships in Ve­r­acruz, Mex­i­co, last week. The ses­sion aims to ad­dress con­flict­ing re­ports from the T&T Cy­cling Fed­er­a­tion (TTCF) and SporTT re­gard­ing the fund­ing process.

​SporTT high­light­ed a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion process, claim­ing the cy­cling fed­er­a­tion’s in­abil­i­ty to pro­duce ex­pense re­ports af­ter in­ter­na­tion­al events ren­dered them non-com­pli­ant and in­el­i­gi­ble for fund­ing.

How­ev­er, TTCF pres­i­dent Rowe­na Williams re­spond­ed im­me­di­ate­ly, stat­ing her fed­er­a­tion was un­aware that the fail­ure to sub­mit all ex­pense re­ports on time was the rea­son for the de­layed fund­ing.

​The meet­ing is sched­uled for to­mor­row at 5.30 pm at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua. Hay­den Mitchell, pres­i­dent of the Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (TATT), wrote to SporTT re­quest­ing the pres­ence of Min­is­ter Watts, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Char­ran, and SporTT chair­man Kester Lendor.

He de­scribed the Min­is­ter and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary as the pri­ma­ry de­ci­sion-mak­ers in sport, not­ing that their ab­sence would re­sult in a “missed op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

​In re­sponse, SporTT con­firmed it would be rep­re­sent­ed by mem­bers of its Board of Di­rec­tors, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer (CEO) Ronald Ram, its man­age­ment team, and the Sport De­vel­op­ment Per­for­mance Unit (SD­PU).

​In a let­ter to Jo-Ann Frances Ot­t­ley, man­age­ment as­sis­tant in the SD­PU, Mitchell wrote: “Thank you for shar­ing the pro­posed agen­da for the up­com­ing meet­ing. We would, how­ev­er, ap­pre­ci­ate con­fir­ma­tion of the es­ti­mat­ed end time, as some of our ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers re­side in To­ba­go and will need to make arrange­ments for re­turn flights. We al­so note with con­cern our pre­vi­ous re­quest for the names and po­si­tions of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the SporTT and the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs who will be in at­ten­dance.

​Mitchell con­tin­ued: “Giv­en the im­por­tance of this meet­ing, we be­lieve that, at a min­i­mum, the fol­low­ing key stake­hold­ers should be present: (1) The Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, as he is re­spon­si­ble for set­ting the strate­gic di­rec­tion for sport in T&T; (2) The Chair­man of SporTT, as SporTT is re­spon­si­ble for ex­e­cut­ing the na­tion­al sport de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy; and (3) the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, as the ac­count­ing of­fi­cer re­spon­si­ble for the re­lease of funds to the SporTT and Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mitchell, “SporTT has re­quest­ed the pres­ence of ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers from the Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies through which it is man­dat­ed to sup­port and de­vel­op sport through­out T&T. Giv­en the cur­rent state of sport and sport de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try, this meet­ing presents an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty for frank, open and mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion among all stake­hold­ers.

“Any­thing short of hav­ing the rel­e­vant de­ci­sion-mak­ers present would rep­re­sent a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty and may give the ap­pear­ance that the meet­ing is mere­ly a re­ac­tion to the re­cent pub­lic con­cerns sur­round­ing the non-fund­ing.”

​Yes­ter­day, Rowe­na Williams ex­pressed her sup­port for the call to in­clude the Sports Min­is­ter and Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, stat­ing that any­one who can pro­vide as­sis­tance to the process would be wel­comed.

Both Williams and Mitchell have con­firmed they will at­tend the meet­ing.